I've just finished a little plugin that speaks aloud the artist and track whenever a new song starts. This is handy for when I'm in the shower and don't have access to my screen, but still want to know who's playing.

It is admittedly very basic at the moment. I'll add some prefs to it (especially the option to disable speech) and let you know when its updated. I'll also include the source code and the MSVCR70.dll file.

meischder - do you have the same problem as WavOX? If not, it may be that your system does not have not have a speech engine installed.If you use windows XP, it should run "out of the box" using the SAPI 5.1 speech runtime binaries. Look at the "speech" options in the windows XP control panel to see if you have any voices installed and enabled.If you use windows 2000 then you are using an older version of the speech runtime library (SAPI 4.1). I assumed that these versions are compatible from an API call point of view, but I will look into it to be sure.

Any older version of windows means that you may need to download and install the runtime environment for the Microsoft TTS engine yourself: Microsoft SAPI 4.

Ok, I have found the problem: SAPI 5.x (the windows XP speech environment) is NOT compatible with SAPI 4 (win2K and earlier).For now, I suggest only winXP users bother with the plugin until I get a win2k compatible version together.

<edit>For win98/win2k users:You could of course download the SAPI 5.x SDK which installs the compatible speech engine for SAPI 5 but this is 68 MB!!!!!</edit>

I've just finished a little plugin that speaks aloud the artist and track whenever a new song starts. This is handy for when I'm in the shower and don't have access to my screen, but still want to know who's playing.

Is anyone interested in this? If so, I'll make it available.

What would be really nifty would be to implement this as an input plugin as well.

Heh, I can swear that evil MS Sam is singing along on some tracks he announces.It's when he goes 'Tricky - She makes me wana die', starting from 'makes' he's perfectly in synch with Martina's singing.This is the only case so far, but I think he's adapting to do more.

I'm already working on your last suggestion Canar, but I'm not sure what the advantage of using it as an input plugin is. Can you expand on that?upNorth - I'm not sure if it's possible to delay playback of the audio until the speech has finished because I currently use the callback from foobar that a song has just started as a trigger to speak. Any suggestions?

I'm also wondering if its possible to get different voices. I had the SDK already and used a speech program to convert text to mp3's, and I used different voices for that. I'm sure its possible with this as well.

I'm also wondering if its possible to get different voices. I had the SDK already and used a speech program to convert text to mp3's, and I used different voices for that. I'm sure its possible with this as well.

Go to the aldostools link I gave earlier. You can get Microsoft Mike and Mary using their installation. Although Mary sounds more like a castrated Mike, they're certainly better than Sam. I would love to get my hands on the AT&T natural voices engines - they sound soooo much more realistic, but you have to pay for them.

There's an update that lets you choose a specific voice within the plugin.Coming next: change voice rate, voice volume and text fields (3 of them) for specifying which tag fields (e.g. artist tag field) should be read aloud. Still thinking on how to speak the next track between songs (i.e. with no music playing until speech has finished). Maybe pause the track or turn down the volume until its finished speaking - I'll set it up as an option.

I'm already working on your last suggestion Canar, but I'm not sure what the advantage of using it as an input plugin is. Can you expand on that?

Just makes foobar a text-file-compatible audio player. I've seen image viewers that were text-file compatible as well. Just an interesting idea, is all. Pure geek value. Like PC Speaker output. That would be cool.

I'm already working on your last suggestion Canar, but I'm not sure what the advantage of using it as an input plugin is. Can you expand on that?

Just makes foobar a text-file-compatible audio player. I've seen image viewers that were text-file compatible as well. Just an interesting idea, is all. Pure geek value. Like PC Speaker output. That would be cool.

Vocal remover, lyrics as input and you can have Sam sing your favourite tune...